SportsAid celebrates its 40th birthday

08 April 2016 / 11:49

SportsAid has helped some of Team GB’s greatest ever athletes achieve their dreams and today the charity celebrates its 40th birthday – with Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge hailing the difference the charity has also made to ‘thousands of young people and their families’.

SportsAid provides financial support and recognition to the next generation of British Olympians and Paralympians, with Sir Steve Redgrave, Sir Chris Hoy, Sir Bradley Wiggins, Jessica Ennis-Hill and Mo Farah among those to receive help from the charity.

The Duchess became the Patron of SportsAid in 2013 and has spent time with young athletes supported by the charity at fundraising events, training days and performance workshops.

Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge said: “In the last 40 years, SportsAid has given a helping hand to talented young sports people across the United Kingdom.

“I have been fortunate enough to meet many current and former athletes who have benefitted from the charity’s support. It is always incredibly clear how the help and recognition these athletes receive at such a crucial, formative stage of their sporting lives gives them that all-important boost they need to fulfil their potential.

“As Patron, I would like to wish SportsAid a very happy 40th birthday, and offer my best wishes to everyone who has played a part in their success. Thank you to those who have, and are, supporting SportsAid. Your efforts make a huge difference to thousands of young people and their families.

“Everyone involved in this great cause should be incredibly proud of the impact SportsAid has had on the success of British sport over the last four decades.”

When SportsAid was founded in 1976, as part of a plan from the UK’s first Sports Minister Denis Howell, the charity was the country’s major source of funding for most of its top athletes as they looked to compete against usually better-resourced overseas rivals.

SportsAid, originally known as the Sports Aid Foundation, supported many of Great Britain's athletes at the Montreal 1976 Olympic Games including Sharron Davies, David Wilkie and Duncan Goodhew.

The SportsAid Award they received, as it still does today, helped contribute to covering a range of costs such as training and competition fees, accommodation, transportation, kit and nutrition.

The money was raised by SportsAid from the private sector and the Football Pools back then. Since National Lottery funding arrived in 1997 to help Britain’s top athletes, SportsAid has focused solely on helping talented young athletes, the next generation coming through, and still seeks support from the private sector as well as the usual mix of other charitable fundraising sources.

Each year, the athletes are nominated to SportsAid by the national governing bodies (NGBs) of more than 60 sports. The charity is supporting 1200 athletes, the vast majority aged 12 to 18, in 2016.

SportsAid will be holding its inaugural SportsAid Week ‪from Monday 26 September to ‪Sunday 2 October 2016.

The new initiative is encouraging schools, colleges, universities, workplaces, sports clubs and individuals up and down the country to raise funds to support up-and-coming British sporting talent.

This will come in the form of various fundraising activities such as sports-themed fancy dress days, friends and family activities, sports quizzes, team BBQs, raffles and as you’d expect with a sporting charity, various sporting challenges – how about trying to run 5,761 metres every day of SportsAid Week? That’s how many miles it is from London to Rio de Janeiro.

SportsAid Week comes straight after the Rio 2016 Olympics and Paralympics and will also be used to raise awareness of the next generation of athletes coming through with hopes for Tokyo 2020.